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Me Myself Milly : Penelope Bush

I liked this. I didn’t want to, at first, but I did. It’s a slim, articulate book that is the story of Milly. And, very simply, it’s the story of Milly trying to find out who she is. She’s spent her life as the afterthought in a way, the child lost in the shadow of her bright and eye-catching twin sister Lily.

It’s a very clever, very sympathetic book that wrong-footed me wholly at first. Milly refers to things not having been the same since The Incident. And they haven’t. Her relationship with everything and everyone has changed.

But that’s because The Incident changed everything.

Bush writes in an almost heightened, poetic style throughout this. It’s easy to read the book on one level and ignore the complex and clever structure beneath. But once you finish it, you realise it. You realise the sharp subtleties that run throughout the book and the very, very clever way it’s written.

As I said before, I didn’t want to like this. Referring to The Incident as The Incident all the way through (capital letters) felt a little too artful and, to be frank, repetitive. But I persevered and I’m pleased I did because it’s only once finishing that you realise quite how special – and how smart – this book is.